Rosa Parks Highway
In ... 1994 a [Ku Klux] Klan member applied to participate in [Missouri's] highway cleanup program and "adopt" a stretch of Interstate 55 south of St. Louis. The Missouri Department of Transportation rejected the application, claiming that under the federal Civil Rights Act, it could refuse the use of federal money to "further or subsidize racial discrimination."
However, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that Missouri's refusal to allow the Klan to participate in the Adopt-a-Highway program was unconstitutional, and when the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed that finding on appeal in March 2000, the state had to erect signs announcing the Klan's sponsorship of a portion of I-55. The Missouri Legislature then voted to name the stretch of highway adopted by the Klan the "Rosa Parks Highway," in honor of the civil rights hero from Alabama whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in 1955 led to her arrest and then a boycott of the Montgomery bus system.
text from the Snopes web site. rest of the story here
Technically this isn't the stretch named for Rosa Parks, this is a little bit farther south. But I was traveling it this weekend, and passed the signs for the highway, and remembered that Missouri did something right, and sort of cheered for us, and returned home and last night read the news that she had died.
Here's hoping that she's being driven in style wherever she is.
Rosa Parks Highway
In ... 1994 a [Ku Klux] Klan member applied to participate in [Missouri's] highway cleanup program and "adopt" a stretch of Interstate 55 south of St. Louis. The Missouri Department of Transportation rejected the application, claiming that under the federal Civil Rights Act, it could refuse the use of federal money to "further or subsidize racial discrimination."
However, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that Missouri's refusal to allow the Klan to participate in the Adopt-a-Highway program was unconstitutional, and when the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed that finding on appeal in March 2000, the state had to erect signs announcing the Klan's sponsorship of a portion of I-55. The Missouri Legislature then voted to name the stretch of highway adopted by the Klan the "Rosa Parks Highway," in honor of the civil rights hero from Alabama whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in 1955 led to her arrest and then a boycott of the Montgomery bus system.
text from the Snopes web site. rest of the story here
Technically this isn't the stretch named for Rosa Parks, this is a little bit farther south. But I was traveling it this weekend, and passed the signs for the highway, and remembered that Missouri did something right, and sort of cheered for us, and returned home and last night read the news that she had died.
Here's hoping that she's being driven in style wherever she is.